hing Etah, are
favorite haunts of the walrus. The hunting of these monsters is the most
exciting and dangerous sport in the arctic regions. The polar bear has
been called the tiger of the North; but a contest between one or two, or
even three, of these animals and a man armed with a Winchester repeating
rifle is an entirely one-sided affair. On the contrary, a contest with a
herd of walrus,--the lions of the North,--in a small whale-boat, will
give more thrills to the minute than anything else I know of within the
Arctic Circle.

On the last expedition I did not go after walrus myself, leaving that
exhilarating labor to the younger men. I have seen so much of it in the
past that my first vivid impression is somewhat blunted. I have
therefore asked George Borup to write for me an account of
walrus-hunting, as it appears to a novice, and his story is so vivid
that I give it to the reader in his own words, graphic with the keen
impressions of a young man and picturesque with college slang. He says:

"Walrus-hunting is the best sport in the shooting line that I know.
There is something doing when you tackle a herd of fifty-odd, weighing
between one and two tons each, that go for you whether wounded or not;
that can punch a hole through eight inches of young ice; that try to
climb into the boat to get at or upset you,--we never could make out
which, and didn't care, as the result to us would have been the
same,--or else try to ram your boat and stave holes in it.

"Get in a mix-up with a herd, when every man in the whale-boat is
standing by to repel boarders, hitting them over the head with oars,
boat-hooks, axes, and yelling like a cheering section at a football game
to try to scare them off; with the rifles going like young Gatling guns,
and the walruses bellowing from pain and anger, coming to the surface
with mad rushes, sending the water up in the air till you would think a
flock of geysers was turned loose in your immediate vicinity--oh, it's
great!

"When we were walrus-hunting, the _Roosevelt_ would steam along, with
all hands on the watch. Then suddenly a keen-eyed Eskimo would sing out,
'Awick soah!' or, possibly, 'Awick tedicksoah!' ('Walruses! A great many
walruses!')

"We would look to see if there were enough of the animals to make a raid
worth while; then, if the prospect was satisfactory, the _Roosevelt_
would steam along to leeward, for if they smelled her smoke they would
wake up and we would never se